I'm not going to debate something as subjective as the superficial congeniality of passersby and neighbors in a given locale. I will say that I knew where I stood in North FL and South GA, and I knew where those around me stood, too. And when it comes to being forthright about dicey issues, there was no mincing and hyper-PC dallying about, which is my largest complaint about the people here. Modesty does not equal kindness, and being liberal doesn't equal racial enlightenment.

And I experience none of the sort. I vastly prefer the educated, driven populace here to the shitty "southern kindness" I found in FL. Which was just as passive-aggressive if not more.

Sounds to me a PAC is being used basically as money laundering to a politicians campaign. Comcast gives to PAC who then decides what to do with the money. They then say they have no control over the PAC and never directly donated to Murray...Yah like many PACs share to rival candidates.

I'm not going to debate something as subjective as the superficial congeniality of passersby and neighbors in a given locale. I will say that I knew where I stood in North FL and South GA, and I knew where those around me stood, too. And when it comes to being forthright about dicey issues, there was no mincing and hyper-PC dallying about, which is my largest complaint about the people here. Modesty does not equal kindness, and being liberal doesn't equal racial enlightenment.

And I experience none of the sort. I vastly prefer the educated, driven populace here to the shitty "southern kindness" I found in FL. Which was just as passive-aggressive if not more.

Hey, this is a realllly subjective subject.I am sincerely glad that you enjoy Seattle and sincerely upset to hear you weren't treated properly in FL. Which part did you go to? Because FL is....yeah...

Oh, please. If I needed a new car (and had the $$), I'd buy a Leaf or at least a Prius or green Subaru Forester. But sweet deal on assuming I drive a pick-up because I merely mentioned I enjoyed my years in the South. I wonder what logical extensions were drawn to arrive at that, and what other associations you have of the South. Which y'know, isn't at all a flawed and very PacNW thing to do.

*EDITED TO INCLUDE OTHER VERY 'PACIFIC NW-Y' THINGS WITH WHICH I ASSOCIATE/DO, ALL OF WHICH TO FURTHER BLOW HOLES IN THE WHOLE 'HE FROM SOUTH, HE DUMB/DRIVE PICK-UP' THEORY:*

I presently own a 2005 Honda civic. It has a KEXP sticker (I give them $250/year) on the back. I voted (early!) for McGinn, because eh, Murray? Really? I'm kind of a composting wizard, I have a beard, I tell visiting relatives how crappy Phoenix is and how they should move. I volunteer 5 hours a week with the Tenants Union of WA, which basically is the only lifeline poor minorities have when intransigent, deadbeat landlords try to nozzle them around. I am VERY Seattle. I am VERY disappointed with some facets of Seattle life. We're probably not all that different, you and I.

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

See you in hell, Comcast!

I'm all for competition, but I'm pretty sure CenturyLink's price jumps after 6 months to around 70/month after taxes (depends on area). So, it could be sufficient speed for what you need, but still isn't on par with what LightSpeed/Google/Whoever are offering

You're correct--it does after 12 months, which thankfully is the end of the contract's life cycle. It goes up to about $70ish, the upshot being that __hopefully__ by that time I'll have fiber to my wall and can run their 300 or 1Gbps tier which is currently priced at $85/120ish. Not exactly competitive with Google, but very competitive with Comcast.

…and this is exactly why corporations, unions and ANY non-individual human being should not be permitted to donate money, in any way to political campaigns! Get the big money out of politics.

My feeling is if you can't vote for them you can't donate money because THEY DON"T REPRESENT YOU. Campaign donations can only come from licensed voters in the elected representatives respective district.

I'm not taking sides on the election, but let's not forget that the Washington Post is now owned by Jeff Bezos, he of Amazon.com fame. Why else would the principle newspaper of Washington DC care about the doings in the other Washington? Would they have even covered this story prior to the Bezos purchase? And is Mr. Bezos a McGinn supporter?

I'm not taking sides on the election, but let's not forget that the Washington Post is now owned by Jeff Bezos, he of Amazon.com fame. Why else would the principle newspaper of Washington DC care about the doings in the other Washington? Would they have even covered this story prior to the Bezos purchase? And is Mr. Bezos a McGinn supporter?

A young, enterprising journalist fresh out of college and wanting to make a good impression with The Big Guy. With stars in his eyes, he writes about a totally meaningless topic vis-a-vis D.C.

"Why, yes, Mr. Bezos. I did write a piece about the Seattle mayoral race. No, no, it's just a hobby of mine."

Granted it's a self-selection bias, but oddly when KUOW has done caller surveys about the election, they rarely get any support for Murray.

I also wonder how much of well-dense apartment dwelling Seattle actually has a land-line to poll.

Isn't polling landlines just a heuristic for taking the pulse of reactionary old people at this point? I can't think of anyone under 40 who has one, or anybody at all who would have something other than "Take me off your list"(and some...less polite variations on this theme) if a pollster called.

I live downtown, and if Gigabit Seattle serves my building (I'm near the border on the map), it will be the second choice I have for gigabit internet. My building also has Condo Internet (my current ISP), a fixed-wireless ISP offering 100Mb/s for $60 or 1Gb/s for $120. It's limited to a few dozen large-ish residential buildings, but it's a pretty amazing service. In addition to crazy fast speeds, I get latency of 3ms pings to my work machine.

Him, or Goodspaceguy. Yes. That is his name. He runs for one office or another every year. Every chance I get, I vote for him. (I think he ran for county executive this year.)One of his political planks is colonizing space.

I write Goodspaceguy in for every office whenever a candidate is running unopposed (local, state, federal, whatever). Just so somewhere in a database there's a name at the bottom of the list with a tally of "1" and someone will wonder. Keeps it interesting. I guess that tally might actually be "2" in some cases. :-)

So, is the current McGinn guy R or D? It's not in the story, and no one's mentioned it yet. Only that his rival is a Democrat.

I believe McGinn never actual ran on any party ticket, as the mayoral campaign is non-partisan.(snip).

All Washington elections are technically non-partisan. Candidates are not allowed to state a political party, although they can say which party they "prefer". During the primary the top two vote recipients regardless of party preference advance to the general election. Sometimes, as in this case, you end up with two people who prefer the same party in the general election.

This is a very good thing. Supporters of the people who run from the other parties who don't make the final ballot are still likely to vote, and the candidate who hopes to win can't ignore them. This tends to have a moderating influence on extreme positions.

By the way, much of the "Im voting for McGinn!!" is election spin because his opponent (Ed Murray) has a huge lead and clearly wont kill the project, which wont even be fully hardwired fiber, but a top heavy mix of wireless. They'll cherry pick the dense neighborhoods thick with apartments, run fiber to the roof, then blanket the building with wireless. Condonet does this in other areas of downtown and they've been offering wireless gigabit service for now for 120$ a month (100mb is $60).

McGinn has been taking jabs at Comcast since the primaries, complaining about how they wont provide gigabit speeds, which they technically do in one neighborhood in Seattle and thats because McGinn gave them a 20 year lease 2 years ago! Now they offer 10 gig speeds in the Pioneer Square district.

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

See you in hell, Comcast!

I wish CenturyLink would do that here. All they want to do here is push their TWC rebranded TV.

I swore a blood oath that i would abandon comcast the second a serious competitor emerged, yet now that CenturyLink is slinking around the neighborhood i find myself irrationally suspicious and resistant to change. I think i have become so jaded from comcast's evil ways that i can no longer love. So, weirdly, comcast has kept me on board by being so terrible, but as soon as i hear a couple good reports about CenturyLink i think i'll roll up my sleeves and make the switch.

Hey Cyrus -- it is pretty irresponsible to accuse Ed Murray of "trying to slow down" Gigabit in your headline without offering one shred of evidence that he is in fact trying to do so. And from what I understand, he is not.

Hey Cyrus -- it is pretty irresponsible to accuse Ed Murray of "trying to slow down" Gigabit in your headline without offering one shred of evidence that he is in fact trying to do so. And from what I understand, he is not.

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

See you in hell, Comcast!

I see you have a pony in this race.

I would like to give the forum a more balanced account of CenturyLink in Seattle and just how delightful they are. Awhile back in live in Ballard (a neighborhood north and west of downtown Seattle), at the time I was getting 7 down and 1 up and paying around $45-50 after taxes. I moved exactly 4 blocks further west and saw greatly reduced speeds. On weekend evenings, I was seeing about 1.5 down. I called CenturyLink to find out what was happening. Lo and behold, when I moved and they moved my service, they neglected to inform me that I moved to a location that only got 3 down and 1 up. I exclaimed "I moved 4 blocks!?! And hey, hey you are billing me for tiered service, why didn't my bill go down to the next tier?" I was told that they didn't have tiered billing anymore. At this juncture, I was more than a little annoyed. "So you didn't tell me I have reduced speeds when I moved and you didn't tell me you guys did away with tiered billing?!" Nice. Okay, so I have 3 down. How come I never actually get anything even approaching 3 down? I talked to CenturyLink engineers who swore on their end I was getting 2.8 or 2.9 down but when I used Ookla speedtest, I never saw anything above 2 down and mostly 1.5. Netflix became a real chore to watch with the constant buffering.

Fast forward to this year. I moved back to Seattle after a brief stint out of state. Despite my dislike of CenturyLink, I gave them another go. I have my service set up and I am getting about 6.7 down and 1 up. After 3 months I meet someone. I decide to move in with her. I knew I had this price lock guarantee with them, so I looked to see what kind of speeds were available at my girlfriend's place, a whopping 1.5 up and negligible down .5 or less. It took me two different service reps on two different days to actually get my account canceled. I was told I would be receiving a refund. I return my modem via UPS. A month later I receive an email, stating I now owe $240, the balance of my contract. How in the world can they hold me to a contract providing me significantly reduced service at my new address? Over the course of the next few months, including many calls to CenturyLink reps. I have yet to receive a final bill indicating exactly what they are charging me. I have had my bill go up because they claimed I owed them over $100 for the modem. Then they reduced my bill because they actually did have my modem. I actually paid my bill including the extra $100 for the modem because I didnt want it to affect my credit. I had to wait a whole month, their billing cycle, for them to refund the $100 I overpaid because of THEIR billing error.

Today, five months in and I still haven't received a paper copy of my final bill. (And no, there is not an electronic version available because after you close your account you no longer have access to their website because you no longer have an account with them). I am not happy and considering a lawsuit. I did manage to get a CenturyLink rep to give me the name and address of the legal service with whom CenturyLink contracts.

Comcast may suck but at least I have 50 down regularly and around 10 up.

I'm a working to help re-elect Mayor McGinn to Seattle. We're in a close race with our opponent, who has received thousands of dollars from Comcast. I'm hoping that you will consider helping us out so that we can show the rest of the country that we can do something about improving internet service. Would you consider helping us out with $5 or $10 donation? Here's how you can help: http://www.mcginnformayor.com/donate.

And this isn't the only issue in the race. You can read about the mayor's positions and his vision for the future of our city here: http://www.mcginnformayor.com/why

Prohibiting corporations from making political "donations" of any sort, to any person or organization, would probably be a better first start... as long as we subject violating corporations to a death penalty: revoke their charters, and seize their assets.

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

See you in hell, Comcast!

I see you have a pony in this race.

I would like to give the forum a more balanced account of CenturyLink in Seattle and just how delightful they are. Awhile back in live in Ballard (a neighborhood north and west of downtown Seattle), at the time I was getting 7 down and 1 up and paying around $45-50 after taxes. I moved exactly 4 blocks further west and saw greatly reduced speeds. On weekend evenings, I was seeing about 1.5 down. I called CenturyLink to find out what was happening. Lo and behold, when I moved and they moved my service, they neglected to inform me that I moved to a location that only got 3 down and 1 up. I exclaimed "I moved 4 blocks!?! And hey, hey you are billing me for tiered service, why didn't my bill go down to the next tier?" I was told that they didn't have tiered billing anymore. At this juncture, I was more than a little annoyed. "So you didn't tell me I have reduced speeds when I moved and you didn't tell me you guys did away with tiered billing?!" Nice. Okay, so I have 3 down. How come I never actually get anything even approaching 3 down? I talked to CenturyLink engineers who swore on their end I was getting 2.8 or 2.9 down but when I used Ookla speedtest, I never saw anything above 2 down and mostly 1.5. Netflix became a real chore to watch with the constant buffering.

Fast forward to this year. I moved back to Seattle after a brief stint out of state. Despite my dislike of CenturyLink, I gave them another go. I have my service set up and I am getting about 6.7 down and 1 up. After 3 months I meet someone. I decide to move in with her. I knew I had this price lock guarantee with them, so I looked to see what kind of speeds were available at my girlfriend's place, a whopping 1.5 up and negligible down .5 or less. It took me two different service reps on two different days to actually get my account canceled. I was told I would be receiving a refund. I return my modem via UPS. A month later I receive an email, stating I now owe $240, the balance of my contract. How in the world can they hold me to a contract providing me significantly reduced service at my new address? Over the course of the next few months, including many calls to CenturyLink reps. I have yet to receive a final bill indicating exactly what they are charging me. I have had my bill go up because they claimed I owed them over $100 for the modem. Then they reduced my bill because they actually did have my modem. I actually paid my bill including the extra $100 for the modem because I didnt want it to affect my credit. I had to wait a whole month, their billing cycle, for them to refund the $100 I overpaid because of THEIR billing error.

Today, five months in and I still haven't received a paper copy of my final bill. (And no, there is not an electronic version available because after you close your account you no longer have access to their website because you no longer have an account with them). I am not happy and considering a lawsuit. I did manage to get a CenturyLink rep to give me the name and address of the legal service with whom CenturyLink contracts.

Comcast may suck but at least I have 50 down regularly and around 10 up.

There is no pony, there's just me hating Comcast and giving the alternative a shot. Though what your describing sounds pretty terrible. Perhaps on their non-FTTN accounts line quality and consistency are (seemingly) very bad. As far as the customer service hell you currently find yourself in, that's really awful. Hope I don't run into that. The only guess I can field is the copper's quality is very volatile street to street? Nodes too old or too far away? 1.5Mbps sounds like hell.

Re Comcast's speeds: I never hit their advertised speeds. I was within 75% of it at any given time (I tried many of their tiers: 25, 50, 100 Mbps down). I had regular drops--about two/week--that would last anywhere from 5 mins to an hour. I had two different techs come out to inspect the line. One put new line and interconnects all the way to the exterior wall, and then installed new hardware at the building box. That improved the drops a bit, but the speed never materialized. And of course, when the Seahawks played, streaming was impossible.

Prohibiting corporations from making political "donations" of any sort, to any person or organization, would probably be a better first start... as long as we subject violating corporations to a death penalty: revoke their charters, and seize their assets.

Yeah, but corporations still provide jobs to, like average people. If you kill only the pariahs (who aren't people) the problem solves itself. God forbid politicians serve the good of the common man instead of the good of the dollar.

Him, or Goodspaceguy. Yes. That is his name. He runs for one office or another every year. Every chance I get, I vote for him. (I think he ran for county executive this year.)One of his political planks is colonizing space.

I write Goodspaceguy in for every office whenever a candidate is running unopposed (local, state, federal, whatever). Just so somewhere in a database there's a name at the bottom of the list with a tally of "1" and someone will wonder. Keeps it interesting. I guess that tally might actually be "2" in some cases. :-)

While cute, have you read any of his ideas about free market economics? It sort of sobers up his platform's quirkiness like e.g. ending the "job and employment destroying" minimum wage. "Supply and demand determine wages." Well, no, not exactly.

Prohibiting corporations from making political "donations" of any sort, to any person or organization, would probably be a better first start... as long as we subject violating corporations to a death penalty: revoke their charters, and seize their assets.

Yeah, but corporations still provide jobs to, like average people. If you kill only the pariahs (who aren't people) the problem solves itself. God forbid politicians serve the good of the common man instead of the good of the dollar.

If a corporation that breaks this hypothetical law and gets a "corporate death penalty" is sold off or nationalized, it's not like those average people would have to lose their jobs.

I perfect example of how the free market doesn't always work. Allowed to run amok without government intervention it eventually goes wrong. On the other hand the same can happen with government intervention.

There is a bit of a bright spot in all of this. I live in Seattle and a CenturyLink rep knocked on my door last month. When I saw her ID, I had slotted about a half dozen denials to her sale. Then she spoke: "CenturyLink just wired your neighborhood poles with fiber, and we can offer 40/20Mbps for $35/month. In 6 months, we will have this block wired for fiber to the wall."

Sold. I called Comcast the next t day, where the incredulous rep told me that what I was telling her (fiber in the 'hood, soon to the home) was wrong and I had better watch out. Boy, she made it easy to switch.

I see CL trucks everywhere out here and always thought to myself "Hasn't anybody told these guys the news about DSL being dead?" Looks like they've been laying fiber all over the place these past few years. I've been testing my connection every hour for the last month and have never fallen below 38/18.

See you in hell, Comcast!

Well, that's progress, finally. Qwest started rolling out fiber-to-the-node a year or two before CenturyLink bought them. CenturyLink said they were going to continue the roll-out. I was heartened when I first noticed Qwest/CL trucks doing upgrades, and even more so when I figured out the pattern they were using for placing the "nodes" around my general neighborhood. Unfortunately, nothing was close enough to my house, until I traced out a fiber bundle that came out of the ground and led to a node not far away. That was two years ago or so. Since then, I've been waiting. Nothing. They upgraded a junction box a few blocks from me this summer, and started replacing the punch-downs on the poles near here, but the ones on my alley are still untouched. It's infuriating. I'm glad to hear that someone is getting FTTN turned up. I'll be waiting I'd love to tell Comcast where to stick their $64.95 plan. Between GigabitSeattle and CenturyLink, maybe I'll get my chance in the next 5 years.

Seattle broadband options are embarrassing for such a tech-oriented city

Because any attempts by the city so far have been successfully shut down by Qwest (now Centurylink)/Comcast. Gigabit is the latest attempt to fix this, and the latest project Comcast has to take out to keep their racket strong.

Yeah, like I said, city councilman and former mayoral candidate Bruce Harrell used to work for the incumbent telco (Aka Qwest) and carried their water for them.